Breathing Underwater

by Julia Green

  Hi Mum and Dad

  Thinking about you. Hope the move went OK and you like the new house and everything. Miss you.

  I cross out and everything. I re-read the rest. My words sound distant and empty. I can’t begin to tell them what it’s like here this summer. I wish I could tell Mum about the dreams, and the remembering, and what it’s really like being here without Joe. I realise it’s days since I spoke to either of them.

  Soon as I’ve posted the card I start walking towards the maze on Wind Down. It’s not beach weather, though it might be later, if the sun manages to burn through the sea mist. It suits my mood: soft grey light, muffled sounds. Every so often the fog horn booms out over the island. You wouldn’t want to be out in a boat in this. My feet take me round, back, round, in towards the centre of the labyrinth. I close my eyes and sway, slightly.

  My questions about Joe’s accident have been in my head for so long it’s wearing me out. It’s building in my skull like a pressure, like a physical weight pushing down. I don’t know how to stop it or let it out. I wonder if it feels like this when you’re going crazy. Am I? Crazed by grief: I read it, somewhere. It really happens. I’m still no closer to an answer.

  I carry on walking across the downs, along the cliff edge, seeing how close I can get, checking how easy it’d be to step over in a mist like this. But it’s not hard to tell when you get close: the air quality changes, and there are gaps in the mist, and it’s not so dense now anyway.

  It’s quite strange, walking into the white-grey dampness. It closes in around me. I’ve no sense of being on an island now: I can’t hear the sea even though I’m so close. Droplets of moisture cling to my hair and my clothes. I feel separate, totally alone.

  It’s not exactly spooky but my senses are all on edge, maybe because the usual clues aren’t there. And perhaps that leaves me wide open to what happens next. Perhaps it explains why I don’t freak out or anything, when I see a figure, down on the rocks.

  This time I know it isn’t Danny, even though he’s about the same size. This time it’s a completely different feeling from before, when I thought I saw him fishing from the rocks at Periglis. It’s what I’ve been waiting for, longing for, ever since I arrived on the island. I know, clearly and absolutely, that it’s Joe. But it’s not like I expected.

  He’s wearing his old blue jacket, the collar turned up. He’s got his hands in his pockets, and he’s jumping from rock to rock, going along in the same direction as me. Because of the mist, I see him in snatched glimpses. We’re walking in parallel, me up here on the cliff, and him below at sea level. It’s my brother Joe exactly like he was last summer before anything happened. There’s nothing hurt or damaged about him.

  I’m not going to ask how this can happen. I’m not going to call out, or run up and touch him, or anything like that. I just keep walking steadily on, and looking, each time the mist swirls and clears a gap, and gradually this extraordinary feeling of calm comes over me.

  He is all right.

  I haven’t lost him for ever.

  He’s here, with me.

  He doesn’t look up. There’s nothing to show he’s noticed me, even, although I’m totally sure he knows I’m here. It’s why he’s there, of course. And then, the next time the mist clears enough for me to see, I realise he’s disappeared again. He’s not there any more.

  I won’t ever tell anyone else about this. I’m not going to let them say you imagined it, Freya: of course there was nothing there. How could there be? People too easily take things away from you that they don’t understand and can’t explain.

  By the time I’ve gone past the fishing rock, the mist has begun to lift. The sounds come back too: gulls, the murmuring of water on stone, the chit chit sound of a bird tapping a shell against a rock. I find a sheltered place to sit, and lean back against the wind-smoothed side of a granite boulder. I close my eyes and breathe in the sweet smell of damp grass and crushed wild thyme.

  Thank you, Joe.

  I sit there thinking about him for a long time. I stop feeling the cold air and the damp, even. It was him. He came. He was fine. Is that what it means? He was showing me he’s all right? That I can stop worrying about him?

  ‘Hey! Freya!’

  Danny’s mooching along the path, fishing rod and bucket in hand. His voice breaks the spell. I’ve been sitting there by myself for so long I’m pleased to see him, though I don’t let on. The mist has almost completely cleared.

  ‘You’re all wet!’ he says. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just sitting.’

  ‘Did you hear the fog horn, earlier? Warning ships?’

  ‘I did.’

  Danny sort of hops one foot to the other, a bit nervous. ‘Want to do something?’ he says.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just hang out together, I guess.’

  I shrug. ‘If you like.’

  ‘Where shall we go?’

  I stand up. I’ve been hunched there for ages and my legs feel all tingly and weird. It makes me laugh.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pins and needles.’ I explain. ‘From sitting still too long.’

  I get an idea, suddenly. ‘If you want,’ I say, ‘I’ll take you somewhere special. As long as you promise to keep it a secret. If I can find it.’

  ‘OK.’ He sounds a bit wary, doubtful.

  ‘You’ll have to follow behind me, once we find the path. It’s very narrow.’

  Path is a bit of an exaggeration. You’d never find it in a million years without someone showing you. I first came here about three years ago with Joe. I find it eventually, by a sort of instinct, clambering along the big rocks, ducking under a stone arch and squeezing through the narrow gap between two huge boulders. It’s a bit like caving except not underground: there are places which are so narrow you have to suck your breath in and half crawl. I was smaller – shorter – last time I came. It’s more difficult than I remember.

  Danny’s huffing and puffing behind me, protesting.

  ‘Trust me,’ I say, turning back to grin at him.

  We come out on a ledge about halfway down the cliff, and edge along that, round the next curve, and then at last we can drop down another level on to granite rocks, just above a narrow inlet which at low tide makes a small triangular beach of silver sand, totally hidden except from the sea. And on this side of the island you hardly ever see boats close in. It’s much too dangerous.

  I jump the last metre or so and Danny follows. Our feet leave deep prints in the wet sand.

  ‘Wow!’ Danny says. ‘Amazing!’

  ‘Worth the effort?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  We take off our shoes. You can’t possibly stay wearing shoes on a pristine, perfect beach like this, where you’re the first people to leave footprints. We run around a bit crazily and then flop down in a heap, breathless.

  ‘How did you find this beach?’

  ‘My brother found it. We never saw anyone else here, ever. We’ve never told anyone about it. So you must keep it a secret.’

  ‘Of course!’ Danny’s face glows. He looks at me and smiles, properly. ‘Thanks, Freya!’

  The sun’s beginning to burn through the low cloud.

  ‘Should’ve brought swimming things,’ Danny says.

  I pick up a pebble and start drawing patterns in the damp sand. Danny finds a funny bit of seaweed like a donkey’s tail and tries to stick it on me, and we end up having a seaweed fight, and get covered in sand. I laugh and laugh and it feels brilliant. We roll our jeans up and paddle in the shallows. I love the feeling of the water running back out under my toes. Danny finds a crab and then I do too and we try and make them have races, only they just make for the nearest rock and hide.

  We poke around in the rock pools. We sit next to the biggest one, side by side, staring in.

  ‘I heard about your brother,’ Danny blurts out.

  I poke at a sea-anemone, feel its tentacles pulling at my finger, trying out if I
’m edible. I bite down on my lip, hard.

  Danny’s shadow falls over the pool and a tiny sand goby flashes back under the weed. ‘Izzy told me. I wanted you to know that I knew, if you see what I mean. Like, I didn’t want it to be secret.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Not much. That your brother was in some sort of accident, and he died, and it was only last year.’ Danny looks at me, waiting.

  Normally I’d clamp up right there and then. Run off. Something. But I don’t. Maybe it’s because of what happened earlier, in the mist. Or maybe it’s because we’re sitting together on this secret beach which is mine and Joe’s special place, and I feel safe. Or maybe I’m just ready, at last, to speak about it instead of keeping it all locked in my own head, going round and round and round.

  I start to tell Danny the story. Just the bare bones, what happened on the last evening. And it isn’t hard, not once I start.

  Nineteen

  Last summer

  August 25th still

  I go back to the house, since there’s nothing else to do.

  Evie calls down the stairs. ‘Freya? Joe?’

  ‘It’s me,’ I call back.

  Why don’t I tell her what Joe’s doing? Later, I ask myself this over and over. I still don’t know the answer.

  ‘Gramps and I are having an early night,’ Evie says. ‘Help yourself to food or whatever. And can you bring the chairs in from the garden? I forgot. Thanks, love.’ She closes their bedroom door. It’s only about nine o’clock!

  I can’t seem to stay still. After I’ve put the chairs in the shed and brought in the rug I wonder about going back to the field to play. I can’t stop thinking about Joe. Upset, because of Huw and Sam but also because of me. Out there on the boat. It doesn’t feel right. Then I think of something and my heart lurches. I go back out to the shed to check: Joe’s wetsuit and all four life jackets are still hanging there.

  Still I don’t wake up Evie and Gramps. Maybe because of that note in her voice earlier: don’t disturb us. I’m halfway along the path to the field when my hand feels something in my pocket and I realise with the most awful gut-wrenching, stabbing pain that I’ve still got the boat bungs, which means that not only has Joe taken the boat out without wearing any safety equipment for himself, he hasn’t even checked the boat. As he goes out into the bay, sea will gradually seep into the hold and weigh down the boat, making it lower and lower in the water, and more and more difficult to control. Panicking now, I start running.

  Luke, Ben and Maddie are the first people I reach at the edge of the field. I start gabbling about Joe.

  ‘Hey, chill,’ Luke says. ‘Slow down a bit.’

  But Ben understands. Alarm registers on his face too and he’s running to tell Huw . . . Huw of all people!

  ‘He isn’t wearing a life jacket,’ I say between gulping sobs. ‘Not a wetsuit even, and it’s getting dark and he hasn’t got lights or anything.’

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Luke says. ‘He’s been out in that boat a hundred times before. He knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘But this is different. He was really upset,’ I start to say. But by now Huw’s come over so I don’t explain properly about that either.

  Huw goes into action mode immediately. I hate him and I am enormously relieved all at the same time.

  ‘Run and get your grandparents. Quick! Now!’ he instructs me. He’s got his mobile out and already he’s pressing the numbers for the coastguard.

  That’s how the nightmare begins.

  It isn’t long before we hear the engine of the lifeboat coming from Main Island. I’m freezing cold, shaking all over.

  It’ll be all right now. It will find him easily. He can’t have got that far. Even if the tide was pulling him out, he knows the waters well enough, where the rocks are and everything. Any minute now and we’ll see them towing the dinghy back in . . .

  Gramps and Evie are already up and dressed and running along the path towards Periglis by the time I get down there. Huw must have phoned them already. I have to go over my story again and again, like I do later to the coastguard, until I’m so weary and muddled it hardly makes sense. I tell them about the bungs.

  ‘It isn’t your fault, Freya,’ Evie tells me over and over. ‘That stupid, stupid boy. Just wait till I get my hands on him. I’ll kill him, I swear I will. Without a life jacket! What was he thinking of? And in the dark, for heaven’s sake!’ She’s crying too. I know she’s being cross because she’s so scared and it frightens me even more.

  Gramps goes white and quiet. He’s all for taking the rowing boat out, and Huw and Dave offer to go out in the Spirit, but the lifeboat men won’t let them. The wind’s got much stronger. The tide’s running fast. They don’t want to be doing two rescues, or more.

  After a while Evie makes me go back to the house with her. That’s when we first hear the helicopter, circling over the island and back and forth across the Sound. Its searchlight beams out over the black water.

  I know it’s very bad news. The coastguard’s called the Air Sea Rescue because the inshore lifeboat hasn’t found Joe. It’s pitch-dark now. How can they not have found him? It doesn’t make any sense. Surely a searchlight would pick up the white sail easily enough?

  We’re all huddled in the sitting room when the phone rings. Evie jumps up. Her eyes are circled with purple shadows. I feel sick and faint. Gramps just stands at the window, like he’s been doing for nearly three hours now, hands in his pockets and jingling the coins in there. The sound’s making everyone even more on edge.

  Evie repeats the coastguard’s words.

  ‘They’ve found the dinghy.’

  Gramps turns, relief flooding his face.

  Why isn’t Evie smiling?

  ‘But not Joe.’

  All the colour drains from Gramps’ face.

  My palms are sticky with sweat. Blood thumps in my skull.

  ‘The boat had capsized.’

  Evie collapses on to the sofa next to me. Gramps takes the phone from her hand. His knuckles are white against the grey plastic.

  Evie starts to rock, head in her hands, making a strange sound.

  She gathers me into her arms and tries to rock me with her.

  Still I don’t cry. I’m stiff, sort of frozen.

  It’s my fault. All of it.

  The helicopter and the lifeboat get called off at about one, because it’s too dark and the wind’s gusting to storm force. They’ll resume the search at dawn. Gramps goes out: Evie doesn’t even try to stop him. He goes down to the bay, I find out later, and waits there all night. Sally from the farm comes to sit with Evie and me. No one says much. Sally makes tea which no one drinks. At some point, Evie must have phoned Mum and Dad, but I’ve blotted that out of my memory.

  At about five, we walk down to Periglis. The wind has blown itself out and it’s a beautiful cool summer morning, the sky all peach and pearly. Gramps isn’t there. Eventually, we find him at the end of the jetty: he’s walked out to meet the police boat which is just making its way across from Main Island.

  Twenty

  Danny listens while I talk without interrupting once or jumping in with his own stories about accidents, like people sometimes do. But perhaps this time I’ve talked too much, because he doesn’t say anything at all, for ages.

  The sun shifts round the little beach so we’re in shadow again and it’s chilly. When I finally stand up, my legs hurt from being crouched down so long.

  Danny throws a limpet shell into one of the rock pools. The rings spread out across the surface. ‘Can I ask you something?’ he finally says.

  ‘Of course. What?’

  ‘Why did you think it was your fault?’

  ‘Because if I hadn’t picked up the boat bungs he’d have seen them on the wall and realised he needed to put them in. Because me following him to the house and then hiding in the lane made him even more angry and upset. Because I should have stopped him going out on the boat, and told someone straight a
way. Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘No.’ Danny frowns. ‘Still doesn’t make it your fault. I don’t see that. He was responsible for what he did. Not you.’

  It sounds as if he’s blaming Joe, but I know he doesn’t mean it like that, and he’s trying to be kind to me.

  ‘We all felt like it was our fault. Gramps did, Evie, too. They were supposed to be looking after him. But I was the one who knew what was going on. So it was more my fault than anyone else’s.’

  I hesitate. Shall I tell Danny the rest? I’ve come this far, I might as well tell him everything.

  ‘To begin with I felt sure it was my fault. Lately, I’ve started wondering something else. Something worse.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whether Joe did it on purpose. Meant to do it.’

  ‘Like . . .’

  ‘Deliberately. It wasn’t an accident. He made it happen. Didn’t do the safety checks. All that.’

  ‘But why? Why would he do that? That’s just crazy, Freya.’

  ‘Is it? Really? Because otherwise it just makes him stupid. And Joe definitely wasn’t stupid. He knew about boats, and safety drills, and weather conditions. About tides and winds and currents and the rocks in the bay.’

  ‘But what would make him do such a thing? I mean, you’d have to be really, totally desperate, to want to drown. To take your own life. That’s pretty extreme. If that’s what you’re saying.’

  Danny’s words sound so blunt and horrible. But that is the heart of it. What might have happened, to push Joe that far? Is finding Sam and Huw naked together enough? Even if she was the first girl he’d fallen in love with, even if he was totally head over heels besotted with her? He’d only known her a couple of weeks. I rake through everything I can remember. Did he seem, like, fed up? But I hardly saw him, those last weeks. And before, he was talking about his plans: leaving home, that course, adventures. It’s not like someone who’s going to take his own life, is it?